“Somehow, it wasn’t about music anymore, it was all about the way I looked,” she explains in an interview for Vintage TV’s Needle Time. “It was about stylists and choreography and photo shoots, having to wake up and do my hair every morning and look glamorous.”

Cilmi (pronounced “chill-me”) was just 13 when she was discovered singing with a neighbourhood garage rock band in Melbourne. She was signed by Universal, relocated to London, and groomed for stardom. “Rock was my first love, Janis Joplin was my hero, and I used to sing Led Zeppelin covers,” she says. But she ended up making an album with Brian Higgins, the songwriter behind hit pop production team Xenomania. “He used to sit me down and say, ‘You can’t be Robert Plant because you have no Jimmy Page!’ He’d worked with the Sugababes and Girls Aloud but, to be honest, I didn’t know much about them, it wasn’t my world.” Finding common ground in soul music, they wrote Sweet About Me together, which became a global hit in 2008, selling over two million copies.

By the time she turned 16 Cilmi was a star, but a second album of disco pop, Ten, pushed her out of her comfort zone, with dance routines, a sexy new image and topless photo shoots for FHM. “I remember locking myself in the loo, bawling my eyes out and thinking how did I end up here? It was a hard time for me, I just kind of felt like a bit of a dolly, a puppet. And that’s not ever what I envisaged for myself. Maybe [I imagined] being on the cover of Rolling Stone one day but not being on the cover of FHM. It wasn’t my dream. So that’s when I kind of broke up with my management and the label.”

Her new album (released on her own label, Sweetness Tunes, in November) is the first that she feels really represents her own music and personality. Not that she’s gone back to Zeppelin. The Sting is a trip-hop-influenced set of lush, emotional songs with a dark undercurrent. She cut off her long hair for the video of her comeback single, Sweeter than History, which she describes as “a bit of a symbolic act”.

Cilmi’s experience is not unusual, and serves as a reminder of the pitfalls of being a young, naïve pop star. “It’s the oldest story in the music business,” sighs Cilmi. “I don’t want to get bitter about it. I learned some lessons the hard way. I felt everything was taken out of my hands. Everyone had an agenda: management, label, co-writers. I brainwashed myself into thinking that everything was OK.”

Gabrielle Cilmi on Needle Time on Vintage TV (pic: Roger Goodgroves)

Gabrilla Cilmi is a guest on Needle Time Future Vintage on Vintage TV on Tuesday, October 8 (SKY channel 369, Virgin 343 and Freesat 515)